Prolife Warrior - 501(c)(3) Churches are Stupid

I recently had a conversation with a pro-lifer who is to remain nameless, I will call him Bill. The topic of 501(c)(3) churches came up, I told Bill that churches are muzzled and cannot support oppose candidates based on issues like child-killing, homosexual marriage, and the assault on the church. Bill then went through this entire diatribe on how the Church was not responsible for molding public policy.

I then told Bill that that Churches are tax exempt by default and that they don't have to file as a 501(c)(3) to be tax exempt. He told me that my statement was ridiculous because churches have lawyers that know the law, and why would a church file unnecessary paperwork to get something (being tax exempt) that they already have. He then asked "are you calling the Church stupid?" I immediately backed off and told him that those were his words, and that I was not calling the Church stupid.

I later did some research and came across IRS Publication 557. According to IRS Publication 557:

Organizations Not Required To File Form 1023 (Form 1023 is the form you file to get a 501(c)(3) status [added])
Some organizations are not required to file Form 1023. These include:
• Churches, interchurch organizations of lo- cal units of a church, conventions or as- sociations of churches, or integrated auxiliaries of a church, such as a men’s or women’s organization, religious school, mission society, or youth group.
• Any organization (other than a private foundation) normally having annual gross receipts of not more than $5,000 (see Gross receipts test, later).
These organizations are exempt automati- cally if they meet the requirements of section 501(c)(3).

After reading this I realized that the Church, headed by Jesus Christ, is NOT stupid, Jesus would never muzzle himself. However, individual churches that take the 501(c)(3) muzzle are not only stupid, they are complete idiots because even the IRS says that it is not required for churches.

That leaves me with one final thought: are Christian lawyers that file 501(c)(3) paperwork for churches on crack or just plain stupid?